Author: Dana Miller

JFK Blue are just as described, a band with an undercurrent of blues but with a good helping of rock. They are relaxed and smooth with some songs certainly crossing over into various incarnations of rock and even a bit of pop rock or jazz. When I caught their set last week at The Cambridge Rock Festival, it was plain that these are strong musicians and solid performers with a rocking and diverse list of songs to play to which the audience truly responded. I sat down with Les Fleischman, the bassist, to discuss how this band found each...

The Kinky Wizzards are the musician’s musicians, but oh, can they jam. They have a slick, groovy, funk stream running through every song that provides a great backbone to be enjoyed by the rock music lover’s ear. I heard their set at The Cambridge Rock Festival last weekend as they went through all of their songs from their latest album, ‘Quirky Musings’ and watched knowingly as the tent filled with more and more audience while they played on. This band is technically superior and has an organised complexity all the while being very endearing rockers. This is not rock...

A big sound from a blues rock band led by a singer with a strong, slow rasp that hooks you in; that’s Big River and its just what you want and expect to hear from a group such as this. When I heard their set at The Cambridge Rock Festival this last weekend, it was just what I knew it would be. Gritty, raw with a slightly dark flavour. It was music that harkens back to deep, southern American rock. You wouldn’t know this band didn’t grow up in the American South and that is a true compliment. With...

The saviour of rock is here!…well, at least in Cambridge. The Cambridge Rock Festival rolled on this year but by the grace of one man, Adrian Bayford. Adrian, a local businessman, who came forward four months ago when the festival had lost its original venue unexpectedly, offered his estate at Horseheath Lodge near Haverhill to festival organisers when it looked like the festival may have to end its consecutive run. An avid rock fan himself, as owner of Black Barn Records in Cambridge, Adrian felt the call and had the means to make the 13th year of The Cambridge...

Cambridge Folk Festival is an institution, of that there is no doubt. Although it has grown in size and form steadily year on year since its first year in 1965, it still retains the general ethos of a loose, relaxed festival scene. That is the appeal, along with an increasingly diverse and changing musical line-up that turn up to perform each year. The festival, set on the grounds of the scenic Cherry Hinton Hall, had all of the usual accoutrements one would expect-rain sodden campers, an abundance of pricey food and merchandise stalls, crafty and enlightening workshops for one...